Proving Faith Through Testimony and Confidence

1. "Because here's the truth. If you claim to be a Christian, if you claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, here's something you have to prove. You have to prove that you have it. And you need to know, if you don't know already, people are watching you. They're watching you. If you say, hey, I'm a Christian, I'm a believer, I go to church, I have faith, like however you word that, they are watching you. They are watching how you act. They are watching how you speak, how you speak to your spouse, how you treat your kids. Are you good at your job? Do you live by the words that you claim to believe? They are watching you." [02:52] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "If faith to you is just you've got something to do on Sunday morning, people that are watching you are like, why would I do that? I've got other stuff I could do. I could literally do nothing. Or I could clean a garage. I could mow the grass. I could paint the house. I could do the bills. Whatever it is. Like they're like, I don't see the benefit if faith to you is only coming to church a couple of hours a week." [04:19] (23 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "If you reduce the death of Jesus to that of a mere man, then atonement for sin, is impossible. It's completely impossible. You and I can't be forgiven. We can't have a relationship with God. We are left to justify ourselves, which none of us can, by the way. And therefore, we can only turn from a just and holy God and spend eternity in hell. That's it. That's the only other option. So John is not saying, hey, I think we've miscommunicated some things. No, no. This was not a misunderstanding. John was saying, if you believe this, it changes everything. It changes everything about Jesus, about the gospel. It literally changes everything." [13:10] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "I'm convinced that the reason that people don't share their faith with other people, the reason that people don't tell other people about Jesus is not because of fear of rejection. It's not because of the fear of persecution. It's not because you're afraid your HR department's going to come down hard to you for talking about God at work. It's none of that. The reason we don't share our faith with other people is because we've lost faith in our own story. That's it. You can't convince me otherwise. I've seen it over and over and over again. We have forgotten what God has done for us. We have overlooked what Jesus has done in our life. We've lost the wonder and the power of what God did." [18:32] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "If you claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, here's what I know. God pulled off the greatest magic trick ever in your life. He took your dead, lifeless, cold, black, cobweb-infested heart, and he breathed, life into it, and it started beating for the first time. That's what I know to be true, that he took us from being dead to being alive, from being blind to being able to see. Listen, there's no addiction story that's greater than that. There's no infertility story that's greater than that. There's no I found purpose for my life that's greater than the magic trick that God pulled off with our dead hearts." [21:40] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "Stop trying to convince people about the Bible. Just stop. Stop trying to convince people that Jesus is real. Stop trying to convince people that they need Jesus. Here's what you need to do. Tell your story. Tell your story. Your story is powerful. It's the most powerful thing you will ever share. It's the most powerful thing you will ever own, and you don't have to know everything about the Bible to share your story. You don't even have to care that they believe your story. Who cares if they don't believe your story? It's your story. What are they going to say? Well, I don't think that's the way it happened. It's my story. It's how it happened. Trust me. It doesn't matter if they believe it or not." [23:08] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "Self-confidence gets you motivated. God-confidence gives you purpose. You can be self-confident and do it all in your own power, and that'll get you off the couch, and that'll help you do some things, but when you trust in God's confidence, that gives you a purpose for living. That changes the world. That's what happens there." [27:49] (22 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "If your confidence matters more in your life than God's confidence does, hear me, you're the God of your life. If your confidence... Sorry, if others' confidence, maybe it's a spouse, boss, coworker, friend, family member, whoever it is, if their confidence matters more in your life than God's, they're the God of your life. It's only when we place our confidence in God's confidence that he becomes the God of our life." [36:52] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "You have to submit to God's authority. Plain and simple. There's no way around it. There's just not another way to do it. You have to submit to God's authority. You can try to assert your authority over God's authority, and let me know how that works out for you long term. It's not going to work out for you, okay? And you can push up against it, and you can be mad, kind of like your mom used to yell at you and be like, get in there and do them dishes. And you're like, oh, I'm in there and doing them dishes. I can't believe she's making me doing it. What'd you say? Nothing. I'm doing these dishes. You didn't like it, but you did those dishes, didn't you? We have to submit to God's authority, just like we would submit to the ruling that the judge would make in that trial case. We don't have to like it. We do have to submit to it. We have to submit to God's, authority. We do not break the authority of God. We are broken upon God's authority." [33:46] (59 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "Share your story. Share it. Don't let someone else tell your story for you. They're not going to do a good enough job. It's your story. You own the copyright. You know all the details. Share your story. It's the most valuable and most powerful thing that you will ever have. Tell it to someone. And you may be like, I just don't know how, I don't know how to share my story. Okay. I want to make it easy for you. Okay. All you have to do to share your story is answer three questions. Question number one, what was my life like before? What was my life like before? What kind of person were you? What kind of things did you do? What kind of things did you struggle with? Were there addictions? Were there strongholds? Were there chains keeping you in bondage? How did you argue? How did you talk? How did you treat people? What kind of employee were you? Like all of those things. Just who were you before? That's the first question you have to answer. Second question is this, how did you come to know Jesus? How did you come to know him? Was it in a church setting? Someone extended the gospel? You came forward? Was it at BBS? Right? Like was it at a conference? Was it over lunch with somebody? Right? Like who, how did you come to know Jesus? And again, don't get concerned that you don't think it's that great of a story. Don't think, oh, it was really kind of simple. It was just my mom prayed for me when I was like seven in my bedroom. Awesome. That's how you came to know Jesus. Who were you before? How did you come to know Jesus? And how is your life different now? How is it different now? What kinds of things are in your life that weren't in your life before? What types of things do you do that you would not have done before? Like when stress happens and life happens and those moments happen, like what do you run to first now that you used to not run to first? How is your life different now because of Jesus? That's it. Who were you before? How did you come to know Jesus? And how has your life been different since then? If you can answer those three questions, you can share your story. And if you can answer those three questions, you should share your story. Don't let... Don't let anyone else share it for you." [35:18] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)